Posts tagged ‘Genetics’

Stanczyk was Reading Eastman’s Online Newsletter. Today he informed me that there is an app for “that”. Now it is becoming a running joke — so I laughed when I read that Icelanders needed an app to know if they were dating a cousin or not (already available for Android and this jester asked about an app for iPhone/iOS − will update later when a reply is received).

Now this jester has known for some time that if you want to research closed genealogical populations, particularly for DNA, you study the American Amish and you study Iceland. According to the CIA Factbook (for Iceland), there will be a projected population of slightly over 317,000 this July. A common settlement date of 874 C.E. is accepted to be earliest time, but there is new evidence that Iceland may have been settled even a bit earlier than that. Almost everyone dates from the original settlers (Iceland has a very low immigration population).

In a previous article about this, back in 2007 (which I see was updated January 2014). The websiteislendingabok.is (online database), which hosts the online registry Íslendingabók (“The Book of Icelanders”). Íslendingabók is the product of a cooperation between Icelandic company deCODE Genetics and Fridrik Skúlason.

Genealogists in Iceland say all Icelanders are descendants of the bishop Jón Arason and according to islendingabok.is. Arason and his partner, Helga Sigurdardóttir, had at least nine children who were all quite fertile, while many of the other members of the then 65,000 population weren’t. So experts argue all Icelanders alive today probably derive from the good bishop. On the website of the University in Iceland this argument is supported by their mathematical formula.

Today this Jester was moved to tears at the Mass of Beatification for The Blessed John Paul II. The Mass just completed was beautiful ! Bless His Holiness, Pope Benedict and all others whose preparation and works made today such a moving mass.

Today is Part Two – This is where Stanczyk wanted to write about Karol Józef Wojtyła‘s genealogical lineage. Blessed be those whose long lineage gave us this magnificent man.

Karol Józef Wojtyła b. 18-May-1920 in Wadowice. He was youngest of three children born to Emilia Kaczorowska + Karol Józef Wojtyła Sr. His beloved mother died in childbirth in 1929 and thus the 4th child within her too must have perished.

Karol Józef Wojtyła’s parents were as named above. Karol Józef Wojtyła Sr. was born 18-July-1879 in Lipnik (near Bielsko). His mother, Emilia Kaczorowska was born 26-March-1884 in Krakow. They were married 10-February-1906 in Wadowice. Karol Józef Wojtyła’s family died in 1914 (sister Olga), 1923 (grandfather Maciej Wojtyła), 1929 (mother Emilia), 1932 (brother Edmund), 1941 (father Karol) leaving him a solitary pilgrim throughout his life.

Maciej WOJTYLA (paternal grandfather) was born 01-January-1852 in Czaniec. Anna PRZECZEK (paternal grandmother) was born 03-September-1878. Maciej also had a second wife: Maria ZALEWSKA born: 01-February-1861 in Lipnik , the daughter of Jozef ZALEWSKI. Feliks KACZOROWSKI (maternal grandfather) was born 26-June-1849 in Biala. Maria Anna SCHOLTZ (maternal grandmother) was born circa 1853.

The Wojtyła line continues backward with: Franciszek WOJTYLA + Franciszka GALUSZKA and one final generation: Bartlomiej WOJTYLA born circa 1788 Czaniec + Anna HUDECKA born 1792 Bulowice. The Wojtyła family are purported to be from Czaniec originally (near Biala in the south of Poland).

As a genealogist, I should point out that all of this information is not sourced and should be verified by church records.

The May 2011 Smithsonian arrived recently. In it was an article by James Gleick on Memes. This is the same Gleick who in 1987 wrote: Chaos: Making a New Science, and who has a new book this year called: The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood. In fact, the Smithsonian article is adapted from that book. The word, meme was coined by Richard Dawkins, in his 1976 book, The Selfish Gene (see page 192) . So this article is a meme upon the venerable meme, a kind of meta-meme, which I will coin as: meme-meme.

Dawkins defined a meme as, ” … a name for the new kind of replicator, a noun that conveys the idea of a unit of cultural transmission.” Dawkins said the analogy was: Cultural Transmission = Genetic Transmission. And so by Dawkins’ utterance, a meme was born (created). He said it sounded vaguely like gene, rhymes with cream, and might even conjure to mind the word memory. So we have gene, cream, memory as the Mnemonic device for remembering the word meme. He originally wanted to use ‘Mimeme’, but then decided upon a monosyllabic word (how atomic) meme. However, this jester thinks, Dawkins writings and ideas are all about, ME, not my me, but his (Dawkins’) me. Notice how meme is a self-replicated version of the word ‘me’. Hence, my meta-meme is meme-meme; So it naturally follows that it is all about me and he (my me first, then his me). Well it was defined in the Selfish Gene (uh Meme), so perhaps, me-me-me-me should be an understood pun? Stanczyk does not know, having never met Dr. Dawkins and thus unable to pose the question.

Why is the CHAOS guy writing about the MEME (uh Gene) guy? After reading the adaption of Gleick’s book in the Smithsonian article I am not certain. It was very interesting. But I am not certain I even agree with Gleick’s article. Gleick said that Hula Hoop ® (an object) is not a meme. Although I suppose his article and mine writing about the Hula Hoop are a meme. Why can’t an object be a meme? One could suppose a Hula Hoop is a cultural unit and perhaps our parent’s purchase, was the cultural transmission. Obviously the Hula Hoop was the latest evolution of the hoop as a toy, when in 1958 Whamo waxed Alliterative and tying the hoop to the Hawaiian dance (soon to be a state in 1959) and we had a fad whose meme is legendary. So let’s wax philosophical…

If a Hula Hoop is in the woods (without anyone around to hear it) is it still a meme? What if there is also a child in that woods? How about we add an Ad-Man? But still with only a child and Ad-Man to witness it perhaps there is no cultural transmission. Perhaps we need to add another child to watch the first child play with the Hula Hoop — are we getting anywhere near a meme yet? If so what is the meme: Hula Hoop, child (1st), Ad-Man, child(2nd), watching a child play ? Is the dark matter between the two children the meme — some kind of quantum cultural transmission? Perhaps we need a TV to broadcast the the two children in the woods to other children (elsewhere) to have a meme. Is the TV or the broadcaster the meme; perhaps it is the commercial being broadcast that is the meme? And who was meme creator? What if the other children did not want to play with the Hula Hoop; Would the concept of a Hula Hoop have been a meme, would these articles still be meme(s)? When are two memes sufficiently alike to be considered the same meme?

Why did the Journal of Memetics become extinct and yet the venerable meme (not to be confused with my meme about the meme) continue to live on?

Please keep the meme alive and also my meta-meme (aka meme-meme) alive and tweet and re-tweet this article. Share it on Facebook with your friends. Write about it in science Journals. Send it in emails. In order for me to ensure its survival I am including the hash tag: #Viral.

For God’s sake save the meme (and the meme-meme), just like the Whale, snail-darters, and Yellowstone Wolves. A Meme is a terrible thing to waste — Pass it on. Thank you for reading my theme (uh meme, uh meme-meme). I am hopeful that some other blogger or writer or researcher will write about my meta-meme (aka the meme-meme) and create his/her meta-meta-meme. I replicate therefore I meme.

It is sad that I must delete a couple of posts from my blog. Since legal discoveries have come to light after June 2010, I can no longer be certain as to the parentage/DNA of some of the subjects I have written about.

Since the paternity is in dispute I have deleted two posts that were filled with such pathos as now they are imbued with a new pathos for me … Doubt and Uncertainty.

Like this:

On March 22, 2011, The United States Holocaust Memorial museum, announced a new program: Remember Me? Their press release statement can be read on the web site here .

They are trying to use the Internet and Social Networking to reunite families / genealogies separated during by the Holocaust and Displacements that occurred during World War II. Already they have had some success. Stanczyk was deeply moved about this program and its connection to history and genealogy. This is a blessing for the Jewish peoples and perhaps other Europeans who were displaced during the war. That was 66 years ago. Why did this idea take so long to be conceived? More importantly, why did I learn of this from the BBC America Network’s World News program? It has been over two weeks since this release came out. How did my links to various genealogical web sites and blogs and other tricks I use fail to inform me of this such that I was bowled over by the TV being my first source of this information?

Three children (uh? seniors) were identified in the first 48 hours of the website and three more have been identified today (6th-April-2011), including Michel Sztulzaft, who was on the BBC news segment Stanczyk watched. PLEASE everyone take a look!

Truth be told Stanczyk has been very busy the last two weeks on frantic matters related to my heart and family. But I just checked Tracing The Tribe, I did not see it there. Please write Stanczyk and let him know if you wrote about this important topic before the TV segment on the BBC or whether you too were just informed.

Happy New Year, genealogists (and others)! This year Stanczyk wanted to start with a posting of where his roots are from and hope that another genealogist with similar roots may have leads or other info for me.

Biechow – the original parish I knew of from Ellis Island ship manifests. Many Eliasz and Leszczynski came from here. Moje Busia said she was born here as did my eldest aunt (Alice, aka Aleksandra). I need to find their birth records to confirm. All Leszczynski birth records have been found here.

Pacanow – this is where my grandmother, Walerya emigrated from. In 1913 she said she came from her father, Tomasz Leszczynski in Pacanow. My grandfather and all of his siblings whose birth recorsd have bee found were born here. I also have my great grandfather (Jozef) ‘s marriage record to Marianna Paluch [followed by the birth records of my grandfather, et. al.]. My great-great-grandfather (pra-pra-dziadek) died here in 1919 and as per his death record he was 60(ish). Alas no listing of his parents and I have not located his birth record or his marriage record to Anna Zasucha.

Now Stanczyk, has been speaking of parishes, but also these were the villages of record too. In the Biechow parish, many Eliasz (or Elias, Heliasz, Elijasz) have been born/married/or died. These events happened in: Piestrzec (most common), Wojcza, and Chrzanow. The village of Piestrzec, was my great-grandmother, Aniela Major’s birth place.

Kwasow – The village of the Wlecialowskich family births. Kwasow is in the Pacanow parish. Maciej Wlecialowski married my great-grandfather’s sister, Katarzyna Elijasz. Rozalia Wlecialowski was a god-mother to at least one of grandparents’ children (Wladyslaw Jozef Elijasz). Rozalia Wlecialowski came to Detroit and married Adam Joseph Gawlikowski. Roza (aka Ciotka Rosie) would be a life-long friend to moje busia, Walerya.

Zabiec – This village is also in Pacanow parish. My grandfather Jozef said he came from his wife Walerya who resided in Zabiec in 1910. Oddly enough, little Wladyslaw Jozef was born in Biechow parish in 1908 (record #42).

Zborowek and Ksiaznice – These villages were once parishes (of some kind) and are now a part of Pacanow parish. Some Elijasz were born or married here.

Swiniary – This parish and the village was the birth place of my great-grandfather Tomasz Leszczynski’s first wife: Julianna Kordos. Might this be the place he was married in too? Perhaps 2011 will bring an answer to this question.

This jester is searching for: Eliasz/Elijasz/Heliasz, Leszczynski, Wlecialowski, Paluch, Major, Zasucha, Kordos, and Kedzierski from these villages. Many other families from these villages are represented in our family tree:

Bugay, Czapla, Fortuna, Grudzien, Mizdrak, Janoski/Janowski, Baran, Podolski, Wrzesnia, Wrobel, Bebel, Bordziak, Kostyra, Gadawska, Gula, Gawron, Garztka, Kopra, Maliga, Maicher, Nalepa, and too many others. Eventually most families from the above villages inter0married over the centuries. Please write to me if you a family name above or a village from above.

This is the second part of my search for Tomasz and family. The first aritcle is here . This amazing find was done by my equally amazing friend from Krakow, Jacek. Stanczyk prized his great-grandfather Tomasz so much, Jacek made an extra effort on my behalf. Thank You Jacek (researcher / genealogist of the Sokolowskich from Swiniary/Biechow/Pacanow/Zborowek parishes).

This document is an alegata. Let me review a bit of Polish genealogical terms to help other new-to-Polish-genealogy researchers. The Polish archives have a few databases ( I have written of them before ), but the most critical to me so far has been Pradziad. If you search their database for Biechow (do not bother with diacriticals), you will find:

urodzenia – Births

małżeństwa – Marriages

zgony – Deaths

and … alegata – Addendum (other, miscellaneous).

So this is an addendum … to something. Now this alegata is fascinating on many levels to me. First off, it is from 1885 and it is testimonial from 1863 ! So this document recounts the events of 22 years ago (from 1885). Second, since it is the era from 1868..1918, it is written in Russian as is required and … also in Polish. Take a closer look…

Alegata from October 1885 about ...

This portion is written in Russian (old style Cyrillic). Notice the stamp which shows that a fee/tax was paid and the date: 4th-October-1885. The last words (bigger than the rest) mean.. BIRTH RECCORD. Oh, so this recounts a birth from 1863. To give you a place we read the first three lines …

Gubernia Kieleckie

Uezd Stopnickie

Parish Biechow

This is from the Russian Empire era where this portion of Poland is one of ten gubernias previously from the Duchy of Warsaw (Russian- Partition of Poland also known as Congress Kingdom of Poland before the czar made it direct territories of the Russian Empire which would last until 1918).

The three pages go on to describe the birth of a female child to Marcin Major & Katarzyna z Ozarowiczow. I like that this birth was originally recorded at 7pm (in 1863) and describes a birth from 5am. Such detail! It is commendable that their bureaucrats worked late into the evenings. Oh this is a quote of the birth record of my great-grandmother Aniela born Piestrzec (part of Biechow parish)! Oh so the Polish is a direct transcription from the church record of 20-July-1863.

All that was great! But the third page was a Marriage Certificate. I had waited so long to see my great-grandfather’s marriage certificate. Now I would have a definitive age and his parent’s names. I was disappointed that his age was not listed in the record?? Oh, well I know he was born 1835 +/- 2 years, so his second bride was as young as his children from his first marriage. My 50-ish great-grandfather was married again and I know in 1886 what happens (Stanczyk’s babcia comes along). It appears Tomasz is the town burgher and a farmer and now Aneila lives in Pacanow, while Tomasz still lives in Biechow. Wait a second, neither set of parents are listed. I know Aniela’s from the first two pages retelling her birth. But I had hoped to learn Tomasz’s parent’s names. Oh, this IS a disappointment!

Now I will have to track down his marriage record from his first marriage and that would be the late 1850’s, an era where no microfilm exists in Biechow. I do not even know where Julianna Kordos was born; I do know her parent’s names and her approximate age — so if I do find her record I will know it is her.

It was said by my elders and confirmed by distant cousins who had heard the same story, that Tomasz Leszczynski lived to the ripe old age of 104! For me as it was for Tomasz, I am sure that is a mixed blessing. Now perhaps my grandmother, my father (and his siblings) and perhaps even myself have inherited that longevity. That would be, should be a blessing. In 104 years of life on this planet, you could generate a whole lot of genealogy and played a large role in that genealogy. Tomasz outlived his first wife (Julianna) and took a second wife (Aniela). It is from Aniela and Tomasz that my grandmother comes, the first born child of that second union.

Tomasz was a shoemaker and an innkeeper, those are facts recorded in the church records of Biechow. There are family stories about Tomasz (was he or was he not descended from royalty). How did my grandmother, Valeria, inherit a mill (not certain what kind of mill) in Łodz ??? In an era of limited literacy, my grandmother was fluent in Polish (undoubtedly her native language), Russian (Biechow was in Russian-Poland partition), and German (the Austrian-Hungarian Empire was just across the Vistula river). Plus she learned English when she arrived here in America, so four languages she was fluent(read/write/speak) in.

The picture that was given to me by Carol (my 2nd cousin, who I have never met in person). The picture is hard to see, it so old (perhaps a century old). But it appears that Tomasz wears a tie and he is seated outside with his wife Aniela [see full picture at end]. I was told that my Busia (Valeria) was one of 12. Well so far I have info on Tomasz having 14 children across his two wives. Indeed two of those children died in infancy (so 1 of 12 cannot be said to be incorrect info). But he lived to be 104. So I have not found his death record (circa beginning of World War 2), but I am fairly confident when I find it, that it will NOT list his parents (as many church death records do), the curse of a long life, your survivors no longer remember that far back. I was never able to find the Leszczynski records in Biechow, except for one record that I believed at the time was my great-grandfather Tomasz’s first wife (Julianna Kordosów). So I recorded the fact, uncertain as I was (time will tell). This jester later joined a Polish social network (Nasza Klasa) and eventually I traded emails with a kind woman who spoke no English. Her maiden name was Heliasz and was from Biechow parish. We realized that we were still too far apart with too many missing links to connect our family trees (although we are very close to connecting them). Unbeknownst to me she went to Biechow and got the marriage record of my grandparents! So it was true. My grandmother was from Biechow and her father was Tomasz Leszczynski and her mother Aniela Major. So now I had confirmed many US documents listing these two whose names were spelled many ways. Well I was elated for sure. Still why so little info on the Leszczynskich from Biechow when I had so many microfilm from the LDS spanning decades/centuries even. Well I had also joined a Polish Genealogical Society website (genealodzy.pl). From there I met a genealogist (Jacek of Krakow) whose family also came from Biechow. I lamented to him my problem of not finding Leszczynski when I had so much evidence that this where they were from. Well Jacek, was also very kindly and he found a few early records from Biechow born to Tomasz Leszczynski and a Julianna Kordos from the early 1860s (not in the LDS microfilm I had seen). So now I had a pretty strong confirmation that the death record of Julianna Kordos from Pacanow parish, was indeed my great-grandfather’s first wife. But I do not have a marriage record for Tomasz and either wife nor do I have any birth info on Tomasz other than an indication he was born in the mid 1830’s. So I cannot go further back. If only I could find a marriage record of Tomasz and one of his wives, then I would know his parents’ names.

Like this:

Polonia, this jester is pleased as punch to tell you, that you can now celebrate Columbus Day as well as Pulaski Day, so get out there in September with the Italians and celebrate with pride our newest Pole, Christopher Columbus! Portuguese historian Manuel Rosa has spent the better part of two decades studying the Columbus myth and has now reached a new conclusion, that everything we thought we knew about Columbus was wrong.

Apparently Columbus’s grandfather was the founder of the Jagiellonian Line of Polish Kings. And his father was Wladislaw III . Wladislaw III was thought to have died at the Battle of Varna in 1444. Luckily for America he survived, found absolution in Palestine for his wrongs, and settled in Portugal, where the Portuguese King gave him land on the island of Madeira, and he married Portuguese aristocracy and had two sons (one of which was Columbus).

Now this story makes sense of why Columbus had access to no less than four royal lines who he could approach and propose such a venture of discovering a new path to the Orient (uh America, ummm, the Caribbean Islands). A Book is coming and National Geographic is also interested in the story. Manuel Rosa is now seeking access to DNA to prove his theory. In the mean time, lets see some Polish flags next September at the Columbus Day Holiday Parades and reclaim our prodigal son from the Italians. This will be a nice entre into October (Polish History Month, Pulaski Day celebrations) giving Polonia two months of pride. Also drink some Madiera wines. It appears we can thank our Polish son for this wine appearing in the Americas — a nice red wine. This also adds to the credibility that Columbus was born on the Island of Madiera (a Portuguese territory at the time) and not in Genoa.

This jester has a deep appreciation for Dr. Stephen Morse and his many works, especially those related to genealogy. I have used his One Step Web Pagefor many years. So it was thrill to meet him at various conferences and I was touched at his kind offer to help moje zona read her grandparent’s tombstone (alas the jester struggles with his Hebrew language skills). I have followed his recent work to make yet a 3rd generation soundex algorithm (for us Slavics).

Originally, we had American Soundex, which you still see on Immigration documents (mine is E420). Then along came the most excellent Daitch-Mokotoff Soundex which was a vast improvement for those whose heritage was Slavic (mine is 084000) and you would see it on Russian Consular records. Recently Dr Morse has developed the Bieder-Morse Soundex algorithm which further improves name matches (by eliminating false matches). So my family name would have Bieder-Morse soundex tokens of: elaS elas [exact match tokens only] . I think only the JewishGen website has implemented that matching.

Now Dr Morse has an article(Genetic Genealogy Revisited) in the APG’s professional journal: “Association of Professional Genealogists QUARTERLY”. It was on the use of genetics in genealogy and he used the Romanov Family mystery as a demonstration of using genetics to solve a question. Now I read in the Current issue of the Smithsonian, the Resurrecting the Czar, article. It too covers the latest background on murder mystery of Czar Nicholas II and his family and attendants. I found that the two aritcles read together give a fascinating account of the story.

Now this jester is not a fan of the Russian Empire (even though my grandparents and their parents were born into Russian-Poland partition). The Rus betrayal of Poland not even a century after the great King Jan Sobieski, the Savior of Vienna [indeed all of Europe], the “Lion of Lechistan” and their betrayal again in 1939 at the start of World War II sour my feelings for our brother Rus. So while I enjoyed the two articles read back-to-back, I was appalled by a few “royalists” who want to bring back the monarchy to the Russian Federation. One woman artist actually is hoping for a Russian fascist (to clean up the mess??) followed by a transition back to the monarchy. That would be quite a rewind of history huh?

Czech, Lech and Rus - there is a legend of three brothers that settled central and eastern Europe. Czech went on to found the Czechs and Rus went on to found the Russians. Lech and Lechistan became Poland. So we can see again that monarchies and the battles between them are really nothing more than family squabbles done on a grand scale. By the way both articles mention the British monarchy and their family connection to the Romanovs (via Hapsburgs). Canute the Great was a Grandson of Mieszko I (first king of Poland) and of course another ancestor of this jester, the twice king Stanislaw Leszczynski, had a daughter marry into the Bourbons. Alas all of Poland’s goodwill and family relationships could not prevent the Deluge and Poland’s slip from History’s main stage. We will have to content ourselves that Rus and their partitions, produced Kosciuszko and Pulaski and they in turn helped to produce America.

Many of you may recognize the title date, as the day the world ends. This popular notion is from the Mayan Long Calendar. On 12/20/2012 we will be: 12.19.19.17.19 and rollover to 13.0.0.0.0 on 12/21/2012. Pretty nifty, right on the winter solstice. Now according to Mayan stories the last creation was on 12.19.19.17.19 the previous time. But what is the Mayan Long calendar and what do the numbers: 12.19.19.17.19 mean?

The Mayans reckon their calendar into 5 parts (hence: 12,19,19,17,19). The last number is called a K’in and 1 K’in = 1 day. The Mayans being rather astute in their calculations use a system that is roughly base-20 (as opposed to our base-10). So they count from zero to 19. So K’in in their system would be the units. Next “digit” up is the winal which is equal to 20 k’in (or 20 days). After that, the next number is called a tun which is equal to … only 18 winals (or 360 days). Next, we have the K’atun which is equal to 20 winals (or 7200 days). Finally, we arrive at the B’aktun which equal to 20 k’atun(or 144,000 days). So, when they write the long date:

12.19.19.17.19 they really mean:

(12*144,000) + (19*7200) + (19*360) + (17*20) + (19 *1) days = 1,871,999 days or 5128.76 years. So they are counting from the date: 26-February-3117 BCE using the Gregorian calendar and projecting it backwards well prior to its creation. Ok, you might argue that is almost the vernal equinox. Hmmm. Wait what is the date of 12/21/2012 in the Mayan Long Calendar: 13.0.0.0.0 . This is not the end of their calendar, as has been commonly expounded by many people hyping new-age kinds of things or books or apocalyptic movies or Sara Palin as President. In fact, there are 7 full B’aktuns left in their calendar, meaning the human race can count on living another 33,139.73 yrs (no worries until the year 35,151 or so). While 12/21/2012 may appear to be an unlucky day to triskadecaphobiacs [people who fear the number 13], it does not mean an end to the Mayan calendar and certain doom.

Now wait a minute, the Mayan story said, that the last time, their calendar was 12.19.19.17.19 was the creation date. Ok, let’s ignore the fact that there must have been 1,871,998 prior days before creation (since we are not starting from 0.0.0.0.0). But lets go with it and see where we end up, shall we?

Let’s start at 12/20/2012 which will be the next 12.19.19.17.19 in the Mayan Long Calendar. Ok, we can now infer that the time prior must have been 38,268 years from 12/20/2012. So subtracting 38,268 from 2012 and allowing for the fact that there was no year ZERO, then in 36257 BCE, at or near the winter solstice, the world was created. Assuming 20 years per generation (as we established in a prior blog), we find that we each have 1913 or 1914 prior generations, that we will need to account for in our family tree [direct line backwards].

Well I have about another 1900+ generations to research, but at least I can now relax, now that I know the world will not end on 12/20/2012. I was feeling pressured to finish my research in the next 2.5 years. Now that I know the Mayan Calendar will not run out for another 33,000+ years, I know I have plenty of time to research and publish the family tree.

I am not certain why they broke the base-20 on the tun (it being only 18 times the winal). But the 360 days in a year is only an error of 1.4% which is as good or better than the Julian calendar and if we consider they started using their calendar 2/26/3117 BCE, then I think we can say they were pretty good mathematicians and astronomers.

Why did the Mayans and Egyptians orient their pyramids to point to Orion’s Belt? Could they possibly have known that our solar system is in the Milky Way Galaxy’s Orion-Cygnus spiral arm? Why did they pick 12.19.19.17.19 ( as the creation date)? That equates to Sagittarius which according to NASA’s website, the center of the Milky Way galaxy is in the general direction of Sagittarius constellation. Were they good astronomers or did they just believe that passing the winter solstice is when things get created?

Stanczyk wanted to take another look at the church records in Pacanow. Recently, I was emailed by a Zwolski ancestor whose Jan Zwolski had married a Petronella Elyasz[sic]. So I went combing through the Zwolski records and sure enough I found a Petronella Elijasz married to a Jan Zwolski. There was a lot of synergy in the names of witnesses and God Parents too.

So I decided to do a survey of the 1883 Births of Pacanow for these “marker” families to see if I might find some female Eliasz/Elijasz ancestors and possibly some male Eliasz/Elijasz witnesses. At the end of this article I put together a table of people, places and dates of this little synergistic community within the Pacanow parish.

I was surprised at how well this little experiment had worked. Now wrapping my brain around the translation/transliteration of proper nouns from Russian/Cyrillic to Polish (or English) is not my idea of fun so I never did a survey of the Russian church records, like I did for the pre-1868 Polish records of Biechow (Pacanow does not have any pre-1868 records that have been microfilmed by the LDS).

So here is what I did. I looked at Elijasz (or Heliasz if any) in the indexes as usual, but now I also noted the records with: Zwolski, Siwiec, Odomski, Pytka, Zasucha, Paluch, Wojtys and for good measure, Zdziebko. Now that last one I added for my good friend, the famous genealogist Ceil Jensen, whose ancestors just happen to inhabit the same parish as my ancestors. Now keep in mind that this survey was just one year and just for the births.

The experiment worked, I found an Elijasz female and one Elijasz male mentioned in records that were indexed by the other “marker” families. Some people call these aligned or affiliated family names. I prefer the analogical thought that these are genetic markers for Elijasz (and on some deeper level this is true). I have joked for a few years now that the Elijaszow are related to all of the families in Biechow and Pacanow parishes. I even take note of these “parish names” when I come across them in the USA records in Buffalo, Toledo, and Detroit in particular, but other US cities as well. They are still good genetic markers for Eliasz/Elijasz even in the USA even more than a century later.

I did not find any Leszczynski or Wlecialowski, but to be fair, I seldom find them in the LDS microfilm. I did find a few other “marker” families that I had neglected to survey in the go around. I found Janicki, Janowski, Luszcz, Major and Kordos too. So these family names are also heavily intertwined with the original list. In fact, I think I found a few misspellings that are actually really in my list, but were misspelled. Now I cannot prove this, but I will build a little database and publish it to my website and see if any genetic marker families ping me about being related.

So I guess when you look at indexes, do not just fixate on your direct descent family name. At some point go back and look for your “marker” family names in the indexes and search those records as well. You too may find some extra nuggets of family gold. At the very least you may find some female ancestors who tend to get lost when they marry.

Oh, that Zdziebko experiment. It appears that Ceil’s Wojciech Zdziebko married one of my “marker” families, Jano{w}ski, and he had a child with Marianna Janoska. So even the Zdziebko’s are just one degree away from my ancestors – but no direct connection.

Like this:

This jester watched “Who Do You Think You Are” (WDYTYA). I was touched and enjoyed the first episode. I hope all interested parties do not get the impression that genealogy is so easy or so fast. Perhaps it was not emphasized, but there about a half dozen of genealogical researchers (who appeared on film — I am sure there were more behind the scenes), who handle the various specialties: California, Gold Rush, New England, Salem Witch Trials, Cincinnati OH/ Germans. I think that demonstrates that you need various skills in various areas and no one genealogist can possibly know it all or be the efficient in areas outside of his/her specialization. I learned some things and look forward to learning more about areas outside my own sphere of expertise.

I hope the WDYTYA will slog through the many blogs and find hints. So, here are two suggestions that I thought of as I watched that can help add even more connections to those watching.

Suggestion 1.

There were opportunities to connect to others (as possible sequels/foreshadowing) and just being literate. For example, I like to occasionally do some genealogy on literati. So I have looked into Nathaniel Hawthorne’s genealogy. His book the “Scarlet Letter” about the Salem trials would have been such a good side bar note. Not because I want useless trivia to clutter up the show, but because Hawthorne’s ancestor was one of the judge’s. They could have shown his ancestor’s name and connected Sara Jessica Parker to Hawthorne in this odd sort of juxtaposition that would have added something for Sara and for those watching. Indeed it drove Hawthorne to write the story and caused him to alter his family name(to an alternative spelling) — another good lesson to budding genealogists.

Suggestion 2.

Give the genealogists, researchers, archivists/archives, and historical sites30 seconds on the film listing them and put their info one the website too (not just the celebrities). A “Thank you to…” still shot listing all of the above and an audio directing viewers to the web site page for more info on these people.

Go to the web site and check out the “about” and exclusive “menus”, in particular the “did you know” menu selection.

Random Musing #2

Did you know there have been approximately, 106 Billion people on this planet over all time? So in theory we’d only need slightly less than 37 generations in our tree to have everyone in our family tree. Of course, that would mean we’d have all people in the family tree before we even went back in time to the Norman Conquest (1066). Obviously there were people before that time. Why doesn’t the math work? As you go back in time, you should see some people appearing multiple places in the tree. So perhaps we need more than 37 generations to all be related.

For those with a scientific mindset, we find in genetics that the genealogical “Eve”, appeared about 200,000 years ago. Oddly enough, the genealogical Adam, appeared only 60,000 years ago. Apparently, he killed off or somehow prevented all previous others from passing on their male DNA. Just so people do not get the idea that partho-genesis did not occur for 140,000 years before male DNA appeared or wonder why that gap. Let’s work with the 200,000 year number. Assuming each generation is about 20 years (Baby Boomers are 1946-1964, a nineteen year span) then we should need 10,000 generations. Just so we are on the same page: Genealogical Eve and Adam are homo sapiens, not any of the other prior prototypes of humanity. That is why we are not talking of millions of years, but only 200,000 years. I once read that the aboriginal Australians believe they have a genealogical tree of 48,000 generations (and they kept track of them!!!). That does not seem to match with the current thoughts that they have resided on Australia for a mere 50,000 years. It does seem unreasonable to have a generation each and every year. This jester once met a man at a recent genealogical conference who claimed he had traced his genealogy back to King David(with source documents of evidence). Forgive me for doubting, but I did wonder, but did not give voice to my skepticism nor voice the obvious question of why, he could not take his genealogy back to Adam, son of God. The rest of David’s genealogy is recorded in the Bible.